Sanitas Radio | Because your health and longevity should not be classified information.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Do we really only use 10% of our brain?

As the new film Lucy,
starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman is set to be released in
the cinemas this week, I feel I should attempt to dispel the unfounded
premise of the film – that we only use 10% of our brains. Let me state
that there is no scientific evidence that supports this statement, it is
simply a myth.

The concept behind the film is that through the administration of a
new cognitive enhancing drug, our female lead character, Lucy, becomes
able to harness powerful mental capabilities and enhanced physical
abilities. These include telekinesis, mental time travel and being able to absorb information instantaneously.
Viewed as such, the human brain should be essentially capable of these
feats, we just fail to push our capacity. So if we can unlock the
“unused” 90% of the brain we too could be geniuses with super powers?

The beginnings of the myth

The 10% myth may have begun in the early 1900’s when the neurosurgeon Karl Lashley
removed portions of the brains of rats who were trained to navigate
around a maze. He found that he could damage areas of the cerebral
cortex and the rats were still able to perform the task correctly, as
well as behave normally. The greater the area of damage, the more
impaired the rats were at the task. However, these deficits could be
recovered through additional maze training and time.

Lashley proposed the principle of “equipotentiality”, meaning that different areas of the brain can carry out the same functions. He added to this the principle of “mass action” – in which the brain acts as a whole in many types of learning.

Function and dysfunction of the brain

But we know now that the brain is not a uniform structure. A small stroke can be devastating. Depending on the area damaged, different brain functions are disrupted. For instance injury to the motor cortex can lead to paralysis on one side of the body, damage to a small region of the frontal lobe known as Broca’s area results in being unable to speak.
Although there is some recovery of certain functions over time due to
plasticity, where alternative areas of the brain can compensate for the
damaged regions, recovery is rarely complete.